


getting up and going down

by cosmicocean



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, TIME TO UNPACK SOME TRAUMAAAA, The Doctor & Jack Harkness Friendship, Thirteenth Doctor Era, jack and the doctor talk about feelings, me banging pots and pans together: PLATONIC INTMACYYYYY, the master is referenced but not present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23749252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicocean/pseuds/cosmicocean
Summary: “What,” the Doctor says, because really, she’s incapable of saying anything else.“You are her, right?” Jack squints at her. “I only had one shot to get in here and I’m gonna be pissed if I screwed it up.”“How are you here?” she asks.Jack snaps his fingers and points at her with a grin. “I knew it! I knew it was you, only you would get confused and irritated over happy to see me on a rescue attempt.” He holds his arms out wide. “How about a hug, huh?”“No,” she answers tersely.“Yeah, I figured.”A good old fashioned prison break, a serious talk about feelings, and a discussion of coolness and a lack thereof.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness, Thirteenth Doctor & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair
Comments: 20
Kudos: 299





	getting up and going down

The Doctor has tried 1,473 ways of breaking out of this cell, and all of them have failed.

The sonic doesn’t work effectively in here, which is not surprising, but still disappointing, so she’s taken to doodling on the floors in the little dust present. She writes her name, and wonders if it _is_ her name.

Keeping track of the days gets hard at a certain point, so she’s stopped bothering. It means when she’s lying on the floor doodling rude words in Gallifreyan and the air changes, a slight change in smell, she doesn’t know how long she’s been there for.

The Doctor stands up sharply, looking around. She darts out her tongue to taste the air. It tastes like electricity, like ozone, like time itself swirling into an eddy-

The air buckles, puckers, and spits out a man who staggers a few steps. He coughs and looks up at the Doctor as she stares in shock.

“Oof,” Jack Harkness says, straightening with a grin. “Been a while since I used a vortex manipulator. What a kick! Better than the last one. This could be a new way to have fun.”

“What,” the Doctor says, because really, she’s incapable of saying anything else. On the list of things that could plausibly happen in her future, this exact scenario was so low on the list she wouldn’t be able to see it from the top of the Empire State Building.

“You _are_ her, right?” Jack squints at her. “I only had one shot to get in here and I’m gonna be _pissed_ if I screwed it up.”

“How are you _here?_ ” she asks.

Jack snaps his fingers and points at her with a grin. “I _knew_ it! I _knew_ it was you, only you would get confused and irritated over happy to see me on a rescue attempt.” He holds his arms out wide. “How about a hug, huh?”

“No,” she answers tersely.

“Yeah, I figured.”

She approaches, eyeing him. The universe still warps around him, sucking in the air around him like a black hole. “How did you get here?”

Jack rolls his eyes and holds up his wrist. “I mean, come on.”

“No, but this is a Judoon maximum security prison. You _can’t_ vortex manipulator in here.”

“Well, you _can,_ if one of the people _manning_ the anti-outside teleport field happens to be an old flame, and good ol’ Mx. Amsterdam did you the favor of letting it down for a half second.” He grins. “And _you_ said being a lothario was-“ he puts on what’s a quite frankly atrocious Northern accent. “‘gonna get your arse kicked’.”

“Alright, first of all, _never_ do that again, second of all, it _did_ get your arse kicked, more than once, in my presence-“ Jack nods in acknowledgment, making a “fair point” face. “Third of all, what are you _doing_ here?”

“Breaking you out, obviously. It’s gonna be good, you’re with the best. You have _no_ idea how many prisons I’ve broken out of.”

The Doctor narrows her eyes at him. “I’m assuming you’ve slept your way out of most of them.”

“Okay, well, that’s a little judgy, don’t knock it if it works, every party was _very_ satisfied, but just so you know, there’s _plenty_ I didn’t sleep my way out of, and you’re about to see how good I am at that.” He sniffs. “Because I assume you still have no interest in the fun way.”

She sniffs as well, feeling closer to her old self than she has in some time. “It’ll take a lot more regenerations than that, Captain Jack.”

Jack beams again. “Ah, I’ve missed you.” He heads up to the door and peers out of the window. “So here’s the plan.”

“Why isn’t the plan _use the vortex manipulator_?”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna be an option.” He turns to her. “You still good at sneaking?”

She straightens to her full height, which is a little less than it used to be, compared to Jack, which she’s _extremely_ against, thanks. “I am an _excellent_ sneaker, won a bunch of competitions dedicated to sneaking, they didn’t even see me til I came up and got the trophies.”

“Awesome.” Jack holds up his wrist. “I can only use this to get in, that’s the deal I struck with Mx. Amsterdam. It’s not actually illegal to aid someone breaking into a prison, it’s breaking out that’s the problem.”

“Not sure that’s true, but.” She points at him with both hands. “Loving your energy. So they’ll lower the field for you to get in, but not for you to get out.”

“Right. _But_ , we should be able to actually get you out of the cell, if not the prison itself, so first we’re gonna get out of the cell.”

“But then how-“ the realization hits her. “ _Oh!_ ” She points at him. “The Judoon teleporters can go in and out no problem.”

“Right. Now, the Judoon keep their supplies in the bottom of the asteroid, so we just gotta make our way down there. We’ll get a teleporter that’s being unused, it’ll be easier to deactivate its tracker, and bing bang boom, we’re on easy street.” Jack rustles in his coat and pulls it what looks like a very sophisticated set of lock picking tools. “See? _Told_ you I was good at this.”

“I’ll believe you’re good at it when we’re out.”

Jack shakes his head, kneeling down by the door. “You’re such work.”

“But worth it,” the Doctor murmurs, unable to stop herself. He looks pleasantly surprised and grins up at her. “Stop that.”

“You and the _stop that_.” Jack turns his attention back to the door. “I could set my watch by it.”

“You don’t own a watch.”

“Watches are pointless when you’re a time traveler.” He points at her with one of the tools. “I learned it from you, Dad.”

“Yes, well. Do as I say, not as I do and all that.” She leans against the wall and shoves her hands in her pockets. “How’d you even find me?”

“I have my ways.” Jack tests one of his tools. It sparks slightly and he nods in satisfaction. “Can’t tell you _all_ of my secrets.”

“You don’t tell me any of your secrets.” Being around Jack is vaguely stabilizing in a way nothing has been for quite some time. Even with the unnerving nature of his existence, it’s sort of comforting. “How’d you even know to look for me?”

“Your friends found me. They’re plucky, those ones. Especially that Yaz, I tell you.” He laughs. “What a firecracker! She read me the riot act a couple times. I see why you like her. Ryan and Graham, though, they’re clever. Graham’s grounded, Ryan gets excited. I like ‘em both.” He winks at her. “Especially the younger one.”

The bottom falls out of the Doctor’s stomach. “They… what?”

“Yeah, they figured out how to put out the call that they were looking for me across some transmissions. Attracted some bad clientele, but they got to me eventually. Pretty insistent.”

Her friends survived. They made it to Earth, the 21st Century, and they’re alive.

They care about whether she’s alright or not.

Jack lowers his bionic chisel. “Are you okay?”

The Doctor swallows.

“Yeah,” she says, in what she thinks is a very good attempt at breezy. “Course I am. Totally fine. I’m always fine, as a matter of fact. Pinnacle of fineness.”

“No,” Jack says quietly. “You rarely are.”

The two of them stare at each other. She swallows again, feeling the urge to tell someone, anyone, about how she’s been stuck in here so long she feels like she doesn’t know what’s up and what’s down, about how she’s not who she thought she was but might not ever know the answer to that question, about how she’d started to feel like maybe no one in the universe cared about her-

“Ko no to po fo pro lo!” A voice barks.

The Doctor curses in Slitheen. She opens her mouth but Jack quickly puts a finger to his lips. He presses a button on the vortex manipulator and he fuzzes out of her sight in a way that she’s come to expect from a perception filter. She quickly rushes up to the barred window.

“Hi!” she says quickly. “Sorry, no, no one’s here.”

The Judoon peers through the window. “Co vo smo zo fo?”

“No, no, just talking to myself.”

The Judoon mulls this over. “Wo bo no mo klo.” 

It moves on and the Doctor breathes a sigh of relief. She looks over at Jack triumphantly. “See? I still got it.”

Jack fuzzes back into view. “I never said you lost anything.” He gives a look up and down. “Love the suspenders, by the way.” He gestures at his own. “Imitating the best, naturally.”

“Oi, I came to suspenders fully on my own, I had suspenders before, as a matter of fact, suspenders, bow tie, tweed.”

Jack calibrates his laser pliers. Laser pliers, the Doctor has always felt, is overkill, especially when a sonic screwdriver’ll do the job much better, but she supposes desperate times and all that. “I bet it was very sexy.”

“Enough of that.” The Doctor looks over at his work. “Shouldn’t you need goggles for all that?”

Jack scoffs. “I laugh at the concept of protective gear.”

“That’s a very immortal thing to say.”

“How would you know? You’ve only met the one.”

That brings her up short. “Ah. Well.”

Jack doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. “ _Ah well_ what?” She doesn’t answer, which _does_ make him look up. “Wait, are you immortal now?”

She opened the door, and now she has to go through it, but she doesn’t know how. She ends up shrugging helplessly. “I dunno,” she whispers.

Jack gives her one of those calculating looks that he’s rare to hand out but always reminds her he was a con man once, and, all things considered, pretty good at it.

“Well,” he says lightly, returning his focus to his work. “If that’s true, then I learned it from you even more. I’m still coming out on top.”

She takes a breath, equilibrium somewhat restored. “Seems a bit rude for the knockoff model to claim he’s better than the original.”

“I’m a lot less uptight than you, which I think has _got_ to be an advantage.”

The Doctor plunks down across from him and motions for his vortex manipulator. “Gimme.”

“That’s mine.” Jack winces and shakes his fingers slightly when the wire’s he’s strapped to the door with what looks like scotch tape (if it works, she won’t mock him for it, if it doesn’t, well, they’ll probably both be dead, so it’s a moot point) sparks at him. “Ask nicely.”

She sighs probably a little louder than she should, considering even if he’s got the perception filter he’s not really supposed to be here and she shouldn’t be attracting attention. “Gimme, _now._ ”

“What do you want it for, anyway?”

She rolls her eyes and gestures impatiently. He sighs and holds out his arm for her while he works with his other hand. She’s a little affronted that she’s got to go over there and take it off him, but she supposes that he came to break her out of prison, so she’s got to make adjustments of her own. She fiddles with it. “Your hands are too big,” she mutters, having found that getting at the vortex manipulator strap won’t go, and resorting to just trying to plain yank it off him irritably over his hand.

She doesn’t need to see the grin on Jack’s face to hear it. “You know what they say about big hands.” The Doctor squares herself firmly on where she’s sitting, plants her feet, and gives an almighty tug. The manipulator comes off, sending her rocking back slightly, and evidently scrapes Jack’s hand as it comes off. “Ow.”

“They get beat up a little more easily?” she snipes, examining the manipulator.

“Oh, I like you a little bit crabby! Are you more crabby in general now or is this a _I’ve been stuck in prison for a while_ thing?”

“Bit of column A, bit of column B. Probably more column B.” The Doctor pulls her sonic out and lets go a triumphant noise when it works on the manipulator. “A _ha!_ I knew it’d be good for something again eventually!” She peers over at Jack’s tools. “You got an exoscalpel over there?”

“I’ve got a zero awl.”

She pulls a face. “It’ll do in a pinch, I suppose. How about some tweezers?”

“Tweezers I’ve got.” He holds them out to her.

“Thanks.” The Doctor takes the awl and starts hacking at the leather on the manipulator until she can cut two squares off it. “How can you bring a lock picker’s set and not have an exoscalpel?”

“How come you haven’t built one into the sonic screwdriver?” He glances over at the sonic. “I like the yellow.”

“Thank you! Me, too.” She pries open the vortex manipulator. “It’s why I chose the suspenders. Aren’t they a nice shade of yellow?”

“Oh, for sure.” Jack gestures for the awl back. The Doctor’s not really sure what an awl’s doing in a lockpicker’s kit, or what he needs it for, but she hands it back anyway. She hasn’t seen Jack in thousands of years, but for all his flash, she still trusts him to be able to wile his way out of a situation. “Great coat, too.”

“Love a great coat.”

He nods in vigorous agreement. “ _Love_ a great coat.”

She bends over and studies the guts of the vortex manipulator. “Oh, by the way, best not to talk now, the perception filter’s not working anymore, so, can’t help you there.”

Jack gives her a Look. The Doctor gives back a Look just as Looky. He pulls a face and focuses on the door. She focuses on her work, quietly tweezing and pulling wires, melting things onto the little squares. Eventually, she finishes, making a little triumphant huff, and motions for Jack’s hand. He makes a wide eyed face, delicately pointing at himself in overdramatic stunned delight. She huffs this time in annoyance and takes his hand. She hovers the sonic over the sticky substance she’s managed to manufacture from a piece of the vortex manipulator and stuck to the bottom of the leather square so it melts and then slaps it over the front of Jack’s hand.

He pulls it back sharply. “Ow! Hey! Hot, no touchy.”

“That’s an _extremely_ dumb thing to say.” She gestures at the patch. “Anyhow, I’ve managed to divvy up the perception filter into two. They won’t be quite as effective as just the one, we’ll have to stand still if anyone passes us, but this gives us a better chance of getting down there.”

“You don’t get to judge me on extremely dumb things to say, I had to hear you say _bananas are good_ multiple times like it was some universe shattering revelation.”

“You don’t get to judge me on things I said in a previous regeneration, and _that’s_ your takeaway? I just jerry rigged two perception filters out of one from a vortex manipulator that’s at _least_ forty seven years past its expiration date, with just a sonic screwdriver, a pair of tweezers, and a _zero awl_ , and you’re gonna give me guff about that?”

Jack grins. “ _Guff._ You’re such an old woman.”

“Shut up.”

“Are you gonna tell me how you went down to the lindy hop with your sweetie one time, Gramps?”

She scowls, handing him back the tweezers. “I did _not_ miss you.”

“Aw, I don’t buy that, everyone misses me eventually. Why don’t you have yours on?” 

“Well, they’re gonna notice a prisoner not being there if they walk by the door, best they notice that once the prisoner actually isn’t there.”

“Fair enough.” Jack stands, flourishes, and presses the little button on what looks like a mini detonator. The door makes an odd puffing sound, and swings open. “Believe I’m the best now?”

She struggles to keep the smile off her face, but she knows she can’t permanently banish her lips turning up at the corners. “You’re alright.” She heats up the adhesive on her patch and slaps it on the front of her hand. “Let’s go.”

“So you’re talking to yourself a lot?” Jack asks.

The Doctor blinks, glancing at him. They haven’t spoken much since they got out of the cell. She’s trying to adjust to there being more world around her except for an enclosed space. It’s disorienting. “What?”

“That Judoon, before he walked off. You said you were talking to yourself and he said _business as usual._ So you’ve been talking to yourself?”  
Her nose twitches. She looks around the hallway. “When’ve you known me to _not_ talk to myself?”

She knows Jack’s got that evaluating look again. “Has it been a… different kind of talking to yourself?”

She swallows, then shrugs. “…rough time of it. You know how it is, one moment you’re traveling around with your fam, next you’ve been told your whole life is a lie and you try and sacrifice yourself for the family you’ll never see again and you end up thrown in prison for an unknown amount of time.”

“…I’m not sure I do know how that is, actually.”

“Ah, well, you should try it!” She lightly thumps Jack on the arm so she doesn’t have to look at him. “It’s an experience. This glue’s awfully sticky, isn’t it?”

“That’s not your best segue.”

“What? I love segues. Full of good segues, me.” She walks a little quicker. “Did I ever tell you about that time it was me, Kit Marlowe, King Arthur, and Houdini were in a bit of a scrape with some Zygons, and I needed a _really_ good way to change the subject, so-“

“Hey.” Jack manages to get ahead of her and puts a hand up. “Look, it’s okay to not be fine. You know that, right?”

The Doctor folds her arms, well aware that she’s shrinking in on herself a little bit, but currently unable to stop it. “I know everything,” she answers, knowing full well how sullen she sounds.

There’s a sudden stomping of feet and they both look towards the sound. She grabs Jack’s arm and ducks them into an alcove.

“It’s going to be a marching line,” she whispers. “It’s usually how Judoon move in clumps in prisons. We’ll just need to sit tight.”

The two of them sit down on the floor, backs up against the wall, listening to the parade of Judoon approach.

“Look,” Jack says in a low voice. “I get that talking about feelings is like pulling teeth with you. But they told me about Gallifrey, and that the Master’s back. Really scrambled the eggs in your pan, huh?”

The Doctor leans her head back against the wall. “Silly expression.”

“If I remember right, you _like_ silly expressions.”

“Yeah.” She takes a deep breath. “He destroyed it, you know. All of it. Razed it to the ground pretty much. I’d gotten it back, and then I didn’t go home for a bit, and while I was gone, he ended the world.”

“You couldn’t have done anything.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know that for sure, do I? And not knowing is worse.” It’s a little rawer than she tends to get, but it’s just been her voice bouncing off the walls for so long, and Jack can see into her a lot better than anyone else.

“Why did he do it?”

“He found out they built… well. They built their whole civilization out of me, I suppose.” She laughs a little shortly. “Tortured me to get to it, evidently.” Is it torture? She can’t remember it. Regenerating always hurts, though, and she supposes they made her do it repeatedly.

“Yeah. That makes sense.” Jack looks at her. “His whole thing is that nobody can hurt you but him.”

She purses her lips. “And everyone else gets hurt in the process.”

“He’d hurt people anyway.” He nudges her with his shoulder. “Just because he hurts people to upset you doesn’t mean that if you weren’t around, he wouldn’t hurt people. It’s who he is. He likes it. He thinks it’s fun. He wouldn’t stop doing it if you weren’t around anymore. You stop him. That’s good enough.”

She swallows. “Were they alright?”

Jack doesn’t ask who they were. “Yeah. Rattled, I think. Worried about you. Dealing with their own experiences. Probably isn’t easy. But ultimately, they’re alright.”

The Doctor looks down at her knees.

“Wasn’t fair of me to say you were wrong,” she says. “Way back.”

“Nah.” Despite the acknowledgment, Jack’s voice is peaceable. “Not really.”

“I don’t.” She feels her fists clench. “Don’t know if I can die myself. Don’t know how to handle that. Wasn’t right of me to abandon you for the same thing. I at least owed you an explanation.”

“Yeah. You did.”

“I leave you all.” She thinks her nails are probably leaving crescents in her palm. “All worse off than before.”

“Hey.” Jack nudges her knee with his this time, then again until she looks at him. It’s the most compassionate she’s ever seen him, she thinks. “We come back different. And it’s hard. For each of us, in different ways. But we come back better.” He puts a hand on her knee. Normally it’s the sort of thing where she’d give it a pointed look, and he’d make some sly little comment about how it was worth a shot. But it doesn’t feel like that now. And she doesn’t tell him to move it. “And we don’t come back with regrets.”

She can hear how shaky the breath she takes it. She reaches out and puts her hand over Jack’s and looks at them, her hand over his, blocking the warping of time around his fingers.

“I did miss you,” she whispers.

“Yeah. I know. You miss all of us.”

“I do. But you’re my friend. And I missed you.”

Jack reaches up and puts his thumb over his fingers. She squeezes his hand tight.

“They wanted me to find you,” he tells her quietly. “Pretty insistent about it, actually. Practically threatened to break my kneecaps. But if I couldn’t bring you back, they just wanted to know if you were okay. All they want to do is know you.”

“I know,” she whispers.

“You should let them.” He squeezes her hand back. “I think they’d like you.”

She swallows and nods quickly, looking out over the corridor. He doesn’t say anything else, just lets them sit in the silence. The Judoon are no longer walking by, but she’s still left unable to get up.

“Do you really call them fam?” Jack says after a while. “Do you really think you’re cool enough for that?”

The Doctor laughs, a little wetly. “I’m very cool, I’ll have you know. Practically an ice cube, me.”

“Leather jacket you was cool. Trench coat you was a little less cool, but still relatively cool. You’re some weird grandma masquerading as cool.”

“ _You_ think calling people fam is cool in the first place, dunno what that says about you, mate.” She lets go of his hand. He removes it from her knee. “Come on. Platoon of Judoon don’t have us marooned, opportune to get a shift on soon.”

Jack laughs. “Man. You’re _definitely_ not cool.” They get to their feet. “All right, let’s get going. If they find me and shoot me they’re gonna mess up my coat. It’s hard to find coats like this these days.”

The gear stockpile in their supplies room is fascinating, and the Doctor sort of wants to explore it and steal some, but unfortunately it’s not the time. Jack rummages around until he finds a teleport and cackles triumphantly. He holds it up. “Wanna deactivate the tracker for me?” She gives it a quick buzz with the sonic and it sparks.

“Terrific.” He holds his arm out to her. She eyes it dubiously, then gives him a look. He rolls his eyes and lowers it. She beams at him and holds out her own arm. He takes it, presses the button on the teleport, and the universe abruptly, briefly blinks out of existence, until it splutters them out all of the sudden again.

They don’t land together. The Doctor becomes aware of this once her head stops spinning. She’s on her hands and knees, coughs like she might vomit, and then her stomach settles. She looks up to see Jack sitting heavily on the grass.

“Judoon teleports aren’t designed for us,” he says a little dazedly. “Makes you all…”

“Reeling,” she manages.

“Yeah.”

She pushes herself to her feet and holds out her arms to steady herself. She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes and breathing in the air. Earth. 21st Century. England. Sheffield. Already her head is clearing, grounding her-

“Doctor?”

Her eyes fly open, and she turns around.

Yaz’s hair is down. She can’t remember the last time she saw Yaz’s hair down. Graham looks just a little bit grayer, and Ryan’s hair has grown out a bit. They’re all clumped together, staring at her a little tentatively, Yaz at the head of them. She’d spoken her name so hopefully, but looks a little more uncertain now.

“Doc?” Graham asks.

“You alright?” Ryan completes for him.

Something in The Doctor cracks just a little further than it already had, and suddenly she’s running towards them. She collides with Yaz first with an _oof_ from her, and wraps her arms around her. Yaz immediately hugs her back, and she feels Graham and Ryan’s arms around her instantly.

“There you go, Yaz,” Graham says. “Don’t have track that Harkness fellow down and give him a right smack after all.” His tone changes, sounding suddenly much more distressed and confused. “Oh. Oh, dear. Eh, it’s alright, Doc. Er-“ he pats her back as best he can with everyone all clumped around her. “Don’t, don’t, it’s alright.”

She’s momentarily confused by the abrupt change in mood, until she realizes she’s making odd snarfly noises, increasingly loudly.

“Hey, don’t cry.” Ryan sounds just as anxious as Graham. “Don’t, blimey. It’s all good, Doctor.”

“Yeah.” Yaz sounds a little more sure of herself. “It’s alright, we’ve got you.”

The Doctor finds her sniffling gets louder.

“That’s the wrong to say, you’ve made it worse,” Ryan hisses.

“What do you want me to say?” Yaz murmurs. “It’s _true._ ”

The Doctor crooks her neck and buries her face in them. Graham pats her on the back again, this time a little less awkwardly. She looks up to see Jack, watching them uncertainly.

She jerks her head just the slightest bit and puts her face back in. Pretty quickly after she feels another pair of arms wrap around them.

“Oi, I’m keeping an eye on those hands,” Ryan says. “Make sure you watch yourself.”

The Doctor chokes out a laugh, and the hug as one turns a little more into a vice, the most comforting one she can think of and she takes a breath, squeezing back just as tight as she can manage.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally got caught up on Doctor Who because I found out what happened in the finale and pretty much had the immediate idea for this fic.
> 
> So this fic shares a lot of themes with another fic I have in the works. I was actually dithering on whether to write this one or the other one, which also contains a Jack Harkness prison break, and then I realized probably everyone and their mother is gonna write a Jack Harkness prison break fic, and there's no good reason why I can't write two. But I am noting that here, so if you read the other one or vice versa, you know that ahead of time.
> 
> -I was pretty sure “they” was the right pronoun to go with Mx., but I don’t know much about the Mx. form of pronoun and Google said they was right but if it was wrong, let me know and I’ll change it
> 
> -I don’t remember if any other Doctor wore a watch, but if they did, I’m gonna say it was the occasional choice as a novelty, which will ostensibly make that canon for the fic, but if you like, you can retcon that out of your memory
> 
> -the original line was “especially the older one”, and I do actually kind of still like that better, but “especially the younger one” fits better canonically, so
> 
> -I had a lot of fun with the sci-fi tool generator I found online
> 
> -the urge to make a joke about Jack coming out on top was strong. it wasn’t right tonally, but I’m letting you know because I assume I will not be alone in that
> 
> -yes, but the big hands joke is tonally okay. I don’t make the rules, I just live and die by ‘em
> 
> -I’m so delighted by the image of Thirteen planting herself and yanking that vortex manipulator off, you have no idea
> 
> -[This is absolutely the vibe when Jack points at himself before she gives him the perception filter, but magnified to the point of obnoxiousness.](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ConventionalAbleAmericancrow-size_restricted.gif)
> 
> -I didn’t actually expect that scene between Thirteen and Jack where they do a Deep Talk to get that tender, but I love writing some platonic intimacy, so I’m pretty pleased
> 
> -I know Yaz is noted about the most ferocious about getting the Doctor back. all of them were, but Yaz is I think in general a little more ferocious in the show, whereas Graham and Ryan are a little more chill. if you wanna read it with a slight Thasmin bent, though, feel free
> 
> [Every once in a while one of my fics gets a bunch of comments in a cluster from different users, and I’m pretty sure at this point it’s because it’s been recced. Which is exciting! But I’d love to see it when it happens, so here’s a link to my tumblr! Feel free to tag me!](https://cosmicoceanfic.tumblr.com/)


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